Hints and Tactics

Try to avoid moving towards your enemy on a character with only 1 movement card, some enemies are just chock full of attack cards and only want to get close to you, use a movement card to run away unless you have some kind of disruptive backup like a push.
Hold onto all the cards you get in the beginning, you'll probably need them for something soon, sell Treasure stuff and duplicates. If your enemy passes, and they still have movement cards, you might be able to move and have them chase you, letting you pass first and go first next round.

Skeleton warriors can be immune to slashing/piercing and slimes immune to bludgeoning, but these are just trait cards that need drawn and can be removed, dont be afraid to try these attacks.

Same goes for penetration, if you cant pierce enemy armor, cards that 'remove the oldest' work just as well since armor cards tend to stick around.

If the enemy is passing, but there monsters still have many cards left, stay away from them ! They might be out of movement but loaded with attacks !

Dont be afraid of cards with negative traits, these can be ditched when you pass your turn but ONLY if you have 3+ cards in your hand when you end your turn !

 

Seeing those notes there about skeletons and slimes, I'm thinking this sort of information will go on the wiki eventually. We'll need it. Realizing what type of battle you're facing is part of the knowledge of this game.

When fighting golems, the fact that the Bronze Golem has Clumsy instantly makes it into a different type of game: the "get behind the big nasty villain so you can hit it and it can't hit you" boss battle. You know those.

I see people are still having trouble with the Imps and Fire Sprite. And I played the Ruby Demon Portal again and beat it again without retrying. The game here is "rush up (under cover if possible) and pin down those squishy magic-users before they can unload the cannons."

Then there are those nasty troglodytes in the early adventure, which probably do need some tweaking. They are playing an agonizing "keep at arm's reach" game with YOU, so you have to have reach (and armor penetration, for some cases).

Dogs, well, just don't let dogs get behind you.

 

I'm mixed about this one, kill them when you have nothing else to do maybe but i wouldnt eliminate the whole 'group' of servants, especially in the level with the two guard dog groups and the servant, if you kill the servant then a dog will move each turn, if you let the servant live then 1/3 of the enemies turns will be a servant doing very little. Except they can bash if you get close. I'd rather let the servant live and if the enemies all draw cards they can still only attack once.

 

Don't always lead with your big attack, especially against human combatants and others with lots of dodge/block/parry type cards. It can be worth it to gamble on a big attack early if you can actually drop a foe so that it doesn't get to attack you, but you are taking a big risk. If you're not particularly worried about them running away (you have more move cards, or they're being aggressive about staying in melee, or they've passed when they had the opportunity to break contact), try hitting them with a Simple Strike or some other cheap attack first. If it hits, then unload with your Violent Overswing or whatever. If it gets blocked, you've flushed out a block card cheap.

Similarly, if they're good at blocking, try to attack the group that's run out of cards, not the group that might still have a bunch of blocks in there.

Penetrating is worth it for fighting foes with heavy armor. Chop and AoEs make a huge difference against mobs of kobolds.

Moving attacks (lunges, etc.) are really valuable for dealing with enemies that want to dance away; so are stabs and other "reach" attacks.

 

Survey the battlefield. You can't fight every map the same way. Just like certain enemies need different cards in your deck to deal with them properly, certain maps need you to maneuver differently to triumph. Early battles against "ranged" opponents can be quickly turned in your favor simply by moving with the map. Other maps become significantly more friendly if you quickly capture vital points to fight from or deny your enemy from. This means sometimes you need to advance slowly up the middle as a unit, sometimes you need to cautiously skirt around the edge, sometime you need to desperately stick to cover, and sometimes you need to rush headlong into the fray. Don't ever ignore the map just because it's a card game. Movement and positioning are the keys to success.

 

To add to that, make sure you know where the terrain blocks Line of Sight or slows Movement! It's sometimes difficult to remember that square with the thick border is actually a tree or pillar!

 

So i just did Defense of Woodhome, on the 2nd stage... it was ridiculously easy. My fighter had enough bashing cards to kill the fire skeleton that came charging, and the three skeletons down the hallway had a Fumble, and dropped there Run card. Apparently that was there only movement card, as i crept up to them and they did not act... So i threw down the Firewall i was saving, and killed all three in one go, didnt even need to end turn on that level.

So the hint is fairly obvious, keep 'field' effects until you believe your enemy is out of movement, especially good when paired with skills to discard enemy cards, just wow.

 

Enemies that can attack from distance usually move away whenever your melee wielders get close, but the AI often moves only the minion(s) directly adjacent to one of your party. I had success today with a mixed 2nd level party by tricking the AI into wasting its cards. A typical round would see me use any magic I had drawn, then Walk my Cleric adjacent to a Trog on the opposite side of the field from my fighter. Gary didn't understand my feint and played a move to get that one Trog away -- between the cleric and the wizard, I had 2-4 "surplus" moves to burn in this manner. After that, my Elven Fighter could use her lone Dash to close in with high damage attacks. (It helps to have good Armor because the Trogs do stab you before you start chasing them.)

 

If you start a difficult level and have a subpar opening hand: resign, move locations, and try it again.

 

This also goes for the arena qualifier round for a different reason. The positions of all your team members and all enemies at the start of the fight is random, so you can get massively position screwed where you're cut off from eachother.

 

These seem more like exploits, along with the "outsmarting ai. above.

There should be some sort of penalty for quit/retry, a cooldown of sorts.

 

I'm not so sure a penalty on a grind but hard game like this would do well. Might put off more people then it helps mechanically.

 

Since if you do it on anything except the first map of a adventure you have to start all over i dont see a problem. As far as a penalty for restarting the first one until you get a great start ever heard of luck drain jinxing and so on?

 

If you feel stuck and have tried all the adventures available to you check the stores and see i you can find a fix for any of your problems. The store reset every 24 hours can get you cards you didn't even know existed so always check them each time they reset and see if you cant pick up some affordable but awesome cards to help you move on.

 

If Gary could have attacked you but passes instead, it's a good bet he doesn't have any attacks left in his hand. Now's a good time to move close and unload with your own attacks.
You can change your facing by playing a move card and selecting your current square.
You can't have more than one of the same card attached to a player; the new copy will reset the timer on the old one.
Lesser versions of traits are still useful for your deck because they'll stack with greater versions, such as Kindler and Firestarter.
Disadvantage cards that are replaced after playing make your deck effectively smaller, which means you get to your better cards faster. So it may still be worth it to equip that cursed item.
Cards like Wavering Faith force you to discard a card when you play them. Save them until they're the last card in your hand and you'll play them for free.
Your armor cards protect against self-inflicted damage too. This can make white-red cards like Unholy Frenzy or Misguided Heal even more powerful.
Try a deck theme based on a class-specific trait. For example, load up on Chops for Slicer, or Fire/Ember Sprays for Kindler/Firestarter.
It's often better to let Gary move first in some situations. But beware; Gary has been known to sneakily pass early, which may force you to discard cards you wanted to keep.
If the bad guys have lots of Block cards, load up your deck with red-blue cards to give you more maneuverability so you can get behind them and negate their blocks.
If the bad guys have lots of Armor cards, load up your deck with Penetrating cards and cards that force discards.
Make sure your Armor cards have "Keep" on them, or they'll be discarded after use.
Sometimes it's best to hold off attacking until the next round, once Gary has had to discard down to two cards in each hand.
Blocks can be used on any attack card, which means attacks that force discards are effective even if they're blocked.
Minion decks draw fewer cards as members of the group are slain. You may be better off killing a few monsters in each group rather than eliminating a group entirely.

 

Take that as law at your own peril, there's been many times where Gary has passed, and still has attacks in hand... it can be a trap. I've lost characters to that(oh he's passed, I can move in my low health guy to attack, and then disengage again. *Powerful bludgeon* Crap my guy died!).

 

As someone who was involved in the evolution of Gary's brain early on, I think you should be outsmarting the AI. That's part of the game. The monster decks are intended to be balanced to take into account Gary's skill level and quirks.

That said, if you find some circumstance in which Gary is consistently making a mistake so bad that it's removing all the challenge, and making the game less fun for you, we need to know that, so we can fix that up.

I'll tell ya -- Gary is positively obsessive about keeping his ranged NPCs at their preferred range. (He may actually be a little too good at that...) I admit, when I am playing, I use the exact same tactic mightymushroom described! Those trog levels can be quite difficult for a new player, and I think it's a great tactic for dealing with them.